Наушники — Moondrop ALICE

The ALICE, a cable-free in-ear design by the Chinese maker Moondrop, was announced on October 31, 2022 at a price of USD 189.99. It takes the dynamic driver developed for the wired KATO and places it in a compact Bluetooth housing, combining it with a Qualcomm chipset, an app with tuning presets and a charging case that adds several full recharges.

Key specs that matter

Inside each earpiece sits a 10 mm ULT super-linear dynamic driver with a third-generation DLC composite diaphragm, the letters standing for diamond-like carbon. The wireless link runs on Bluetooth 5.2 and supports the A2DP, AVRCP, HFP and HSP profiles, while the codec list covers SBC, AAC and aptX Adaptive. Working range is given as roughly 15 metres in an open environment. Impedance is 32 ohm plus or minus 15 percent at 1 kHz. Moondrop quotes about 8 hours of playback per charge and around 40 more hours from the case, which charges through a USB Type-C port with an input rating of 5 V at 0.5 A.

Engineering and use context

The driver is designed and built in-house. Moondrop describes a composite magnetic circuit that uses both internal and external magnets for higher efficiency, a more linear air flow structure, a larger internal acoustic cavity made of brass, a lighter voice coil wound from ultra-fine imported CCAW wire and a high-frequency phase waveguide. The earpiece also borrows the integrated acoustic cavity structure of the brand's wired in-ear monitors. Processing is handled by the Qualcomm QCC5151 chip with its built-in DSP. VDSF+, short for Virtual Diffusion Sound Field technology, is a processing mode that the owner may enable or disable. In the MOONDROP Link app the owner chooses among 10 tuning presets or opens a parametric equalizer to build a custom curve. Two microphones in each earpiece handle voice calls, and the chip applies ENC environmental noise cancellation to the outgoing voice signal. No active noise cancellation for the listener, IP rating or weight is listed by the maker.

Pairing

As a Bluetooth device the ALICE links straight to a smartphone, tablet or laptop without any amplifier or DAC in between. An Android source that supports aptX Adaptive can use the higher-bitrate link, while other sources connect over AAC or SBC, and the phone also runs the MOONDROP Link app for presets and equalizer changes.

Alternatives

For listeners who prefer a cable, the Moondrop KATO is a wired in-ear monitor built around the same ULT dynamic driver.